While the size and scope of EB Expo always continues to impress, there's only one thing the roughly 35,000 attendees expected to traverse the showroom floor care about: the quality of games.

This year marks the first full year since the release of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, marking the first Christmas where gamers truly have a window chock-full of major releases. Playable at the expo this year included fan favourites like Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, the crowdfunded Project CARS, the horror mystery The Evil Within, Aston Martins and Ferraris in DRIVECLUB, the quirky third-person team shooter Splatoon, the upcoming extension of the Dark Souls series in Bloodborne and the home-made Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

But not everything was playable at EB Expo and there were some games that the crowd would have thoroughly loved to get its hands on. Assassin's Creed: Unity, The Witcher 3 and The Division were all video presentations. Some demos were extremely short - The Order: 1886 offered only a few minutes of gameplay - while technical faults ruined the experience of others, with Halo: The Master Chief Collection beset by some unfortunate input lag.

With that in mind, here are five of the games I enjoyed the most at EB Expo.

Evolve (Turtle Rock Studios, PC/PS4/XB1)

Without any shadow of a doubt, Evolve, the upcoming asymmetrical multiplayer shooter from the Left 4 Dead makers, was head and shoulders above the rest of the competition. Evolve was a crowd favourite throughout, with queues longer than anything else save for Battlefield: Hardline and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

For the uninitiated, Evolve pits one monster - the Beast and the Kraken were playable at EB Expo - against four Hunters, of which the latter is split into classes (Medic, Assault, Trapper, Support). When a match starts, the monster runs around the map consuming wildlife to gain energy to evolve into a stronger beast.

As the Kraken, I was able to invest points into certain skills before the match started. Every time you evolve, you can make those abilities stronger or choose to learn new ones. It's a simple system fleshed out with the fact that the Hunters can follow the tracks you make, while carrion birds and large beasts make noise that gives away your position.

Evolve is tight, tense and completely different from anything else gamers will see in the next six months. It was just as playable on mouse and keyboard as it was with a controller and judging by the crowds, it's shaping up to be a massive hit when it launches on February 10.

Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios, PC, XB1, 360)

While there was plenty of booth space and banners spent on the major triple-A titles, there were more than a few indie games for gamers to enjoy. Tucked away on a single Xbox One console was Ori and the Blind Forest, a game I ended up liking so much I went back for a third and fourth session.

Ori is a white guardian spirit that looks a bit like a cross between a cat and Stitch from the Disney movies. Ori isn't born with Stitch's destructive nature, having to meekly jump and dodge enemies in the initial stages until he meets Sein.

The abilities of both can be upgraded as you progress. It's a simple levelling-up system that will appeal to fans of Child of Light and Bastion. The 2D platforming style is certainly reminiscent of Ubisoft's charming platformer, while Ori's fluid movement is a little reminiscent of Rayman Legends.

Running at 60 frames per second at 1080p helps as well, but even if the game was half the frame rate Ori and the Blind Forest would still be a beautiful little game. It's due out on PC and Xbox One later this year, with an Xbox 360 version to follow in 2015.

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris (Crystal Dynamics, PC, PS4, XB1)

When viewing the enormous line for The Witcher 3 hands-off presentation, a fellow freelancer and I decided to walk around the corner and see what else was playable. And despite a couple of initial bugs on the menu screen where only two of the three characters were usable, what we discovered was one of the most surprising co-op experiences on the show floor.

Unlike the action-adventure blockbuster, Temple of Osiris is a co-op top-down platformer in a similar vein to Gauntlet. Each of the different characters - Lara, Horus and Isis were selectable on the show floor, although only Lara and Isis appeared to be functional in our playthrough - can interact with the environment in different ways.

Lara, for instance, can use her gun to grapple onto brass rings, whereas Isis's staff can be used to illuminate or burn objects from a distance. Isis can also activate a shield that Lara can jump on, while objects with a certain symbol can be raised or lowered.

The Temple of Osiris is a refreshingly-pleasant action-adventure with just enough of a challenge to keep things interesting. It's also probably helped by the fact that expectations are almost non-existent considering all the attention given to the bigger budget releases.

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is due out on PC, PS4 and Xbox One on December 9.

It might seem like the hipster thing to be back on the Call of Duty bandwagon, but as someone who gave Ghosts and Black Ops 2 reasonably wide berths for failing to do anything interesting with the franchise, the mega-franchise has finally found its feet once again - by launching repeatedly and prodigiously into the air.

My major beef with the COD series ever since the first Black Ops has been its propensity for ever shrinking maps while continuing to provide gun battles that largely play out in an identical fashion to the last several iterations. With the inclusion of the Exo abilities - a series of superhuman traits that allow you to dodge and charge mid-air, as well as wall-run - Advanced Warfare has been able to expand the size of the locations and firefights without losing the adrenaline rush that makes COD work.

The Pick 10 system introduced by Treyarch in the Black Ops series has been expanded to Pick 13 and the range of perks offers the various traits fans have come to know and love - faster movement, protection against explosives, quicker aiming while sprinting and so on.

With promises of a massively expanded campaign and the physical experience of seeing a COD game that has finally shaken up the way multiplayer matches feel and play, I have no qualms in jumping back on board once again. Advanced Warfare already looks streets ahead of Ghosts and Activision will undoubtedly be breaking sales records all over the place once November 4 rolls around.

One More Line (SMG Studio, Android/iOS)

SMG Studio has been enjoying a fair bit of time in the sun lately, with their tower defence title OTTTD coming to prominence through this year's Intel Level Up Game Dev Contest. Winning the "Other" category of the competition meant the Australian indies earned a spot at PAX Prime in the United States, which is a big coup for any developer starting out.

At this year's EB Expo, SMG also took the time to demo their latest mobile title, One More Line. It's immediately clear that the team has a prodigious level of talent, with One More Line sporting a very retro, striking art style that's immediately engaging.

The game plays out like an endless racer crossed with SlingShot Racing. The player's job is to tap the screen to hook onto various pegs to continue progress as far as possible without crashing into either the sides or other pegs.

It's a fast, eye-catching game that's mechanically difficult, which can be a bit of a rarity at trade shows. But the controls are simple and intuitive, so you never feel like you're being cheated, only beaten by your inability to time the rotation of your line as it slingshots around.

Australian ingenuity should always be welcomed and it's impossible not to do so when SMG has got the formula precisely right. One More Line launches on Android and iOS later this year.

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